Why Personas Matter

Personas are archetypal users based on research. They aren’t fictional guesses — strong personas are grounded in data and help teams make better design and product decisions.

When to use personas

• During discovery to align on a primary user
• For prioritization: which persona benefits most from a feature
• During usability testing: recruit participants that match a persona

What personas are not

• Not stakeholders’ ideal users
• Not imaginary stereotypes with no research backing

Expected outcome

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• Explain what a persona is and when to use them
• Tell the difference between research-backed and guess-based personas

Practical exercise

Write a short (1 paragraph) description of the persona your team most commonly designs for. Capture assumptions and the key evidence you’d need to prove or disprove them.